


in which they're both nerds and tadashi plays pokémon on kei's bed

by deanpendragon



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 00:32:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6031588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deanpendragon/pseuds/deanpendragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Tsukki?” Yamaguchi asks distractedly, hanging halfway off Tsukishima’s bed.</p><p>“Yamaguchi.”</p><p>“If you were a Pokémon trainer, what kind of trainer do you think you’d be?”</p><p>_____________</p><p>bc i'm basically in love with this ship and the fact that yamaguchi tadashi is CANONICALLY obsessed with pokémon, which, SAME</p>
            </blockquote>





	in which they're both nerds and tadashi plays pokémon on kei's bed

“Tsukki?” Yamaguchi asks distractedly, hanging halfway off Tsukishima’s bed.  
  
“Yamaguchi.”  
  
“If you were a Pokémon trainer, what kind of trainer do you think you’d be?”  
  
Tsukishima hums. The slight clicks of Yamaguchi hitting the buttons on his DS resonate in the comfortable silence between them. The music of a particular fast-paced route sings electronically from the console.  
  
“I’ve never thought about it,” he answers finally, closing the book on his desk. Yamaguchi notices this and grins, thrilled to have his full attention. He moves the console underneath his chin to look at the back of Tsukishima’s head.  
  
“I think about it a lot.”  
  
“No doubt,” Tsukishima nods.  
  
He spins around in his desk chair to face Yamaguchi fully and props his feet up on his bed, though he says nothing more. His hands come up from his sides to clasp each other in his lap. Tsukishima’s head tips back and Yamaguchi watches his throat as the blond swallows and hums again before quickly looking back to his game. He sends a pokéball out at a wild Absol even though he’s already got one in the PC.  
  
“What about a Psychic-type trainer?” Yamaguchi asks as he abandons the resilient Absol and is caught by a Spoink. He should’ve applied some repel, he realizes as an afterthought. He taps at the console’s screen gently with a capped pen Tsukishima’d given him—he’d forgotten his stylus back at his house—and waits for him to respond. He looks up at him when the taller of them shrugs.  
  
“I think some of those types are kind of boring. Why’d you think that?” Tsukishima muses. “For me, I mean?”  
  
Yamaguchi doesn’t mention the Spoink and instead says, “I dunno. You’re smart. Maybe that’s why. And you could probably learn to interact with them telepathically, like, over time and stuff. Then your opponents would never know what’s coming.”  
  
At this, the ghost of a grin creeps up on Tsukishima’s lips and if Yamaguchi didn’t have a sixth sense for this sort of thing, he would’ve missed it.  
  
“That’d be pretty cool,” Tsukishima decides, head nodding slightly. “What else?”  
  
Yamaguchi gives him a quick, accomplished smile before looking back down at his DS once again. He’s made it through the route he was on and quickly enters Ambrette Town’s Pokémon Center. His poor Vivillon’s been fainted for a while now.  
  
“Super Nerd,” Yamaguchi sniggers as he talks to Nurse Joy.  
  
“Wow,” Tsukishima replies, unfazed. “Pretty bold to call _me_ the nerd right now, Tadashi.”  
  
“Eh, maybe,” Yamaguchi offers, still grinning. He glances up to see Tsukishima doing the same. It’s kind of a rare sight to other people, perhaps, but Yamaguchi seems to get them from him a lot. He savors them; wants to peel them right off his face and fold them up into unique origami shapes—Yachi’s been teaching him, she says it helps her calm down when she’s feeling anxious—and put them on the top shelf of his desk at home. Maybe he’d put a few in his locker in the club room, too.  
  
“What is it? Is there something on my face?” Tsukishima asks, but his hands remain clasped lightly in his lap where other people’s may have reached up and started worrying at their skin.  
  
“Nah,” is Yamaguchi’s too-quick answer. He’s all too happy to have a distraction and relocates his gaze back to his game, speeding his character out of the Pokémon Center and down to the Fossil Lab that the town harbors. “Maybe you’d be a Bug Catcher, Tsukki.”  
  
Tsukishima blows a small puff of air out of his mouth.  
  
“No way, those lame guys you knock out throughout the first leg of the game?”  
  
“There are cool bug Pokémon, though!” Yamaguchi defends as he uses a potion on his aforementioned Vivillon mid-battle.  
  
“Really, Yamaguchi,” Tsukishima replies, taking on a mock-hurt tone. He presses a pale hand to his chest. He continues, golden eyes gleaming, “I thought you thought better of me than that.”  
  
“What ever gave you that idea, Tsukki?”  
  
“‘Oh, _Tsukki’,_ ” Tsukishima chides, voice changing its pitch. It makes Yamaguchi look up at him immediately. The blond goes on, both hands now clasped over his chest, “‘You’ve always been able to do anything while being smart and cool, and I’ve al—’” He stops when Yamaguchi’s fake pen-stylus hits him in the neck.  
  
“Ah,” Tsukishima laughs openly, catching the pen with nimble hands before it falls to the ground. “You fucker.”  
  
“ _You’re_ the fucker,” Yamaguchi insists, but he’s beaming like the sun; his entire mood brightens every time Tsukishima laughs like that.  
  
“Such vulgar language.” Tsukishima twirls the pen around his fingers like he does sometimes to distract himself. Yamaguchi watches it closely as he doesn’t ever get to do so in class, with Tsukishima sitting at the desk behind him. “See?” Tsukishima says, “You even think this is cool.” He twirls the pen around his fingers some more and Yamaguchi tries to pry his eyes away. His fingers always distract Yamaguchi, though he’d never admit it; thin and long and a little discolored sometimes from how he tapes them up in practice.  
  
“That is cool,” Yamaguchi admits, finally looking back at him. _That’s hot_ , he says inside his head. A blush rushes high up on his cheeks but he knows Tsukishima won’t mention it. He never does.  
  
“I’d teach you how to do it if I could actually figure out how. I think it just kind of happens.” He twirls the pen once more around the fingers on each hand to demonstrate.  
  
_Tsukki must be pretty bored_ , Yamaguchi thinks.

The blond moves his feet from where they’ve been propped on the bed and leans forward, holding the pen straight out toward Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi takes it gingerly, his guilty blush subsiding as he picks up his DS from where it’s been abandoned on the bed next to him.  
  
“Thanks, Tsukki.”  
  
Yamaguchi uses his regained projectile to tap the ‘run’ option from a wild Rhyhorn. He thinks they’re cool and all, but the Rock-Ground typing doesn’t really work for him. A few minutes and a couple Team Flare battles later and Yamaguchi’s a little too aware of the fact that Tsukishima hasn’t turned back to his book but is just sitting in his desk chair, facing him. He’s not watching Yamaguchi though; Yamaguchi sneaks a glance to see that Tsukishima’s now brought his hands to clasp them behind the back of his head, letting it rest back on them slightly. Golden-brown eyes stare somewhere to the side of him. Battle music erupts from the console in his hands—he didn’t realize he was still pressing on the cursor-pad—but he doesn’t look away, instead letting his eyes follow the curve of Tsukishima’s sharp elbows down to his upper arms.  
  
“A Dragon Tamer,” Tsukishima says suddenly.  
  
Yamaguchi’s eyes slide easily from his arms to his eyes. He cocks his head and furrows his brow and that maybe makes Tsukishima blush just a little, but he knows Yamaguchi won’t mention it. He never does.

“A Dragon Tamer,” Yamaguchi repeats thoughtfully. He pulls his legs out from under him and stretches them down the length of the bed. He sits on his hands and nods his head the same way Tsukishima’s doing.

“That’d be neat,” Tsukishima adds nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t just been thinking in-depth about this hypothetical decision for the last ten minutes. He brings his hands down to fall in his lap again and Yamaguchi tries not to watch his pale fingers as they fiddle with one another.

“ _Really_ neat,” Yamaguchi beams.

Once he’s done that, Tsukishima smiles widely too.

“Right?” He agrees.

“Totally, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi insists supportively. Now he’s kind of wishing he’d caught that Bagon he’d ran away from on the last route he’d been on. He pulls his DS up to his freckled face again and heads back for it, Team Flare be damned.

“You look so determined now,” Tsukishima notes.

“Gonna go catch a Dragon-type I saw on the last route.”

“Ah, Yamaguchi. In honor of me?” Regardless of the blond’s semi-joking tone or not, Yamaguchi replies seriously.

“Of course, Tsukki.”

“What was it? An Axew?”

Yamaguchi wants to beam again but bites gently onto his lip to stop himself. He loves learning that Tsukishima actually listens when he’s ranting about the things he likes. In fact, Yamaguchi’s sure he does research on particular Pokémon-related subjects after Yamaguchi mentions them. Tsukishima’s just that kind of guy.

“A Bagon.”

“Even better,” Tsukishima approves.

“Agreed, Tsukki.”

Ten minutes and no Bagons later—Yamaguchi is getting more annoyed with every smirking Mienfoo he fails to successfully run away from, damn it—and Tsukishima’s turned back to his book, once again leaving Yamaguchi to glance at the back of his head every two minutes like he was doing before.

“Dragon Tamer Tsukishima,” Yamaguchi muses, still thinking about it. He kind of just wants his attention too, though Tsukishima’s full name tastes oddly coming out of his mouth.

“Heh,” Tsukishima puffs out a weak laugh. “Dragon Tamer Kei.”

“Sounds good. Dragon Tamer Kei,” he repeats.

His given name from Yamaguchi puts a steady flinch in Tsukishima’s shoulders like when Sugawara pokes him in the ribs.

“Sounds better when you say it,” Tsukishima says back with a nonchalant wave over one of his shoulders. “Pokémaniac Yamaguchi.”

“Eh?” Yamaguchi questions, setting the console down completely. He fumbles with the pen in his hand and says, “That’s what you’d think I’d be, Tsukki?”

“Fits pretty well, I think. In this universe, anyway.” Another soft laugh shakes Tsukishima’s shoulders and this time the pen hits him square in the back of the head.

“So weird that the rest of the Volleyball Club doesn’t know you’re this violent.”

Yamaguchi rolls his eyes, that damned blush creeping up on his face again. He leans back down over his DS and uses his pointer finger to paralyze the Bagon he’d finally managed to find. The move hits successfully and the little blue sprite of the Pokémon stops hopping around and stills on the screen. He throws the only Great Ball he’s got.

Yamaguchi wishes he could still this moment too; slow and steady after-practice moments like this with Tsukishima in the latter’s room. He thinks they’re lucky to be first-years and to have a couple more years like this before thinking about college, unlike Sugawara and Asahi-san and Sawamura. He wishes he could still this moment where he’s once again regained all of Tsukishima’s attention, the blond spinning around in his desk chair again to give Yamaguchi a full view of his trademark smirk. But there’s something else there, too; there’s the spark in his eyes that says _playful_ instead of _terrifying_ and sometimes Yamaguchi thinks he’s the only one besides maybe Akiteru that can tell the difference. The pen is once again twirling through the long fingers of Tsukishima’s left hand, Tsukishima having recovered it from where it fell onto his desk.

“Pokémaniac Yamaguchi would be pretty cool, though,” Yamaguchi nods after he pulls himself back to the present moment.

“Really cool.”

Yamaguchi shrugs a lazy shoulder and taps at the console’s screen again with his index finger. He hates using his fingers on this thing. It’s like he can physically feel the screen getting grimier.

“Too cool for me, probably,” he admits.

He can feel Tsukishima looking at the top of his head as he’s leaned down over his DS. He wasn’t intending on hiding his face after the statement but the distraction’s nice, anyhow.

“You know,” Tsukishima says pensively not a minute later, “I didn’t want to say this, but—”

Yamaguchi looks up at him through his eyelashes.

“—A Dragon Tamer’s probably too cool for me.”

A weak laugh escapes from Yamaguchi’s lips and now that he’s looking at him, he sees Tsukishima has stopped playing with the pen and instead is holding it delicately in a loose fist.

“Super Nerd Tsukishima,” Tsukishima nods, lips pursed. “Super Nerd Kei.”

He tries to keep a straight face but there’s clearly a grin willing itself onto Tsukishima’s lips against his wishes, growing wider when Yamaguchi gives him one of his own. It’s another moment he wants to still, to fold up into a stupid origami swan, whatever, he just wants reminders of it whenever.

“Super Nerd Kei and Super Nerd Tadashi,” Yamaguchi states.

“Why stop there?” Tsukishima questions casually. Playfully, his eyes widen and the blond finishes, “Super Nerds Tadashi and Kei. Fuck it, we’ll be a battling duo.”

At this point, Yamaguchi’s laid back on Tsukishima’s bed and is laughing openly, happy—no, overjoyed—with all the choices he’s made in his life to bring him to this moment right now. He feels warm all over. He feels even warmer when he looks over and sees through crinkling eyes that Tsukishima’s letting himself beam, white teeth exposed and chuckles escaping through them.

“We’ll be that double battle at the end of a cave that everybody fears and nobody can beat,” he continues through sporadic laughter.

“That’s perfect, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi’s nodding enthusiastically, ruffling up the hair at the back of his head against Tsukishima’s comforter. “Make them wish they’d never entered the damn cave to begin with.”

“Now you get it,” Tsukishima grins, pointing the pen at him in emphasis.

Yamaguchi rolls across the bed to snatch it from him but before he does, it’s pulled back against Tsukishima’s chest. Yamaguchi stares at him.

“What?” Tsukishima asks, offended. “You think I’d just give you back your weapon after two projectile attacks? You must think I’m pretty dumb.”

“I won’t throw it again, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi grins. He aims for it to be at least a little mischievous and apparently he hits his mark because Tsukishima gives him a look and holds the supposed weapon tighter to his chest. Yamaguchi tries again, “C’mon.”

“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,” the blond lists.

“W—ow,” Yamaguchi sputters, “You really are a Super Nerd.”

Tsukishima huffs and the blonde curls on his forehead quake with the force of it.

“Obviously.”

“C’mon, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi pleads, eyes still crinkled from laughing, “I’m gonna get the screen all dirty with my fingers. I know you hate that too.”

“True,” Tsukishima says coolly, but makes no move to hand over the makeshift stylus.

“I need it.”

“Then come get it.”

The front of Yamaguchi’s brain says, _wow, Tsukki’s feeling pretty playful today_ , and the back of it just says, _finally_.

When he realizes that Yamaguchi’s actually moving to get up off the bed, Tsukishima gives him a wicked grin and holds the pen as far as his long arms will allow him to away from the other’s reach. Tsukishima’s tight grip on the pen only falters slightly when Yamaguchi slings one of his long legs over his lap and fully straddles him.

“Are you trying to distract me?” the blond asks conversationally.

Yamaguchi only blushes slightly. Oh, right. He’s supposed to be reaching for the pen.

He places one freckled hand on Tsukishima’s left shoulder and reaches over his right one in a fruitless attempt to grab the object. It’s no use; even with Yamaguchi’s grand height, Tsukishima’s reach is still longer. But he doesn’t wanna pull back just yet, likes the way their bodies are sort of mashed together. Not to mention the way Tsukishima’s basically resting his forehead against Yamaguchi’s sternum. He doesn’t really know how long he can pretend to be reaching for the pen but it’s no matter, Tsukishima is soon resting his hands on Yamaguchi’s shoulders and gently but pointedly pushing him back down to his level. Yamaguchi can barely hear the rapid battle music emitting from his DS over his—or was it their—sudden, heavy breathing.

He doesn’t really know what to do with his hands, hasn’t been this close to Tsukishima more than a couple of times, so he settles on bringing them up to press against the blond’s firm chest. He swears he hears Tsukishima stutter a breath and then the taller of the two of them is dragging the end of the pen Yamaguchi didn’t know he was still holding over the freckled boy's back, pressing down patterns and shapes over his shoulder-blades.

“The cap’s on, right?” Yamaguchi asks even as he’s sighing into the pressure.

“Of course.”

He abandons the pen after he gives his answer anyway, both hands raising to press against the back of Yamaguchi’s neck. Tsukishima takes a second to pull off his glasses and place them haphazardly on the desk behind the chair they’re both sitting upon. Yamaguchi thinks he hears the pen that was in his hand clattering to the floor but forgets to listen when Tsukishima’s pressing him down to kiss his lips.

The kiss is slow, deep, the kind he’d expect Tsukishima to give. It’s unsure but enthusiastic nonetheless, still great in Yamaguchi’s book, and Yamaguchi shifts his body a little bit to get the angle a bit better. The readjustment makes Tsukishima sigh stutteringly and Yamaguchi pulls back a bit to look at the blond’s pupils, blown wider than he’s ever seen them. Tsukishima doesn’t have the time to look embarrassed—probably wouldn’t be, anyway, Yamaguchi thinks—and kisses into his mouth again, slower than even last time but definitely more deliberate.

“Plus,” Tsukishima’s saying the next time they pull apart, both panting, “if you were a Pokémaniac then you’d get to wear that weird half-dinosaur-Pokémon-whatever-suit that they wear.” He pauses here to look at Yamaguchi seriously, fingers still petting the hair at the back of Yamaguchi’s neck and pupils still wide and dark. He pants, “You know what I’m talking about?”

Yamaguchi literally can’t believe this, but he supposes it's his fault for starting it.

“Yeah, Tsukki,” he pants back. “I know exactly the one you’re talking about.”

“Ah, of course you do,” Tsukishima’s nodding. He gives Yamaguchi the first quick kiss of the afternoon and adds, “Nerd.”

**Author's Note:**

> some things for reference:
> 
> yamaguchi's playing pokemon x&y and here's a link to that weird pokémaniac suit they're talking about if you don't know/remember: http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/3/32/ORAS_Pok%C3%A9_Maniac.png/150px-ORAS_Pok%C3%A9_Maniac.png
> 
> of course all comments and kudos are appreciated--i had tons and tons of fun writing this!


End file.
